When women’s clothes say everything and nothing, it’s powerful progress

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Some things are such a source of deserved frustration and enduring complaint that it’s hard to recognize when there’s no longer anything to lament. This may well be the case on the subject of women, power and their clothes.

As a presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton wore a rainbow of retina-searing pantsuits; as speaker of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) stalked the halls of Congress in stilettos; Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sowed the seeds of progressivism in Nina McLemore jackets with their narrow shoulders, full backs and stand-up collars and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) shocked, awed and befuddled Capitol Hill denizens with her cheerleader skirts, purple wig and animal prints. And before them, countless other women navigated groundbreaking or freshly acquired power wearing floppy scarves knotted into bows or charmless skirted suits in Republican red or Democratic blue.

All this so Vice President Kamala Harris could at long last move through a convention and a campaign wearing pantsuits that are remarkable only because they look so quietly, confidently normal for those who live their lives in white-collar settings.

The dog has finally caught the car. The culture has arrived at a point where the uniform of power can be defined in a multitude of ways, including in a manner that is discrete, urbane and confidently feminine. This has been fashion’s point all along. And while there are those obsessives who won’t be satisfied until crop tops and transparent skirts are de rigueur and, at the other end of the spectrum, there are the stubbornly judgmental who have a hissy fit over eyelashes, the vast middle ground just wanted space in the halls of power for individuality, as well as the delights and preferences of a feminine point-of-view.

It has been quite something to see the women who have stepped up to the microphone on the 2024 campaign trail and during both parties conventions. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) has worn a magenta sheath and a fuchsia plaid jacket with sweetheart shoulders, as well as a tailored ivory dress as she has used her own clout on behalf of Harris. And Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman, endorsed former president Donald Trump in a bright red blazer that was defiantly traditional – not a trad wife, but a trad lady politician, if you will. Gabbard is now part of his transition team.

At the conventions, one could debate the quality of the tailoring displayed by the men, whether a lapel was too wide or a jacket’s collar pulled away from the neck or its buttons strained against a robust midsection, but there was a repetitiveness to their appearance. They were in civilian uniform. The women showed the multitude of ways in which power can be conveyed – from the Republican convention’s Nikki Haley in her sea foam, floral coat dress with its fitted waistline and flared skirt to the Democratic convention’s Michelle Obama and her deconstructed Monse navy pantsuit with crisscrossing lapels and a belted waist. Both these ensembles spoke of authority and confidence, both of them defied generations of stifling assumptions of what it means to dress for success and for impact.

And then, of course, there was Harris accepting the Democratic presidential nomination in a navy Chloe suit with a matching blouse. It looked like the sort of strong-shoulder, neat waist, clean-lined ensemble that one might see on a business executive in an urban center or a partner in a corporate law firm. The suit looked expensive but not indulgent, modern but also timeless. It was in keeping with what Harris has almost always worn in her professional public life, but with a bit more polish for the historic occasion.

This is the moment that a multitude of women had been moving toward – one that is encapsulated by Harris. Striving women from boomers on down could look at Harris, who was just shy of her professional summit, and think, yes, that image makes sense. The clothes make sense. Harris’s mountaintop may not be the one they’re struggling to reach. Perhaps a monochromatic ensemble featuring a pussy-bow blouse is not precisely what every woman might have chosen to wear if they were in Harris’s position. But the look made sense for the woman wearing it. It made sense because it didn’t look like a burdensome costume. And in that respect, Harris wore what every woman would hope to wear for her own consequential moment.

This is the win. Harris’s suits – the coconut brown one, the sky blue one, as well as the ones in gray and lilac and every other color – don’t have to speak eloquently about … anything. They can, but they don’t have to. Harris herself is doing all the talking. She’s a woman who has arrived at this place not because she finally stepped out of the shadow of a husband whose career she’d spent a lifetime supporting, but because she chiseled her own path under the glare and heat of sunlight. She’s not a woman who was reluctantly pulled along on a wild ride and rose to the challenge. She chose this course and her husband has agreed to buckle-up and see where it goes. She didn’t spend some significant portion of her young life having babies or balancing motherhood and work. Still, she lived fully; she aspired and excelled and kicked open doors.

It took generations of women to get here – not just those that came before Harris, but also those who were born after her. The past and the future collide in Harris’s suits, her Converse sneakers, her designer sequins and her beloved pearls. She is Constance Baker Motley’s polish, Shirley Chisholm’s boldness and every social media native’s buoyant self-regard.

The clothes will always matter because they set a tone, because they are big business and because they can make us feel – joyful, comfortable, powerful, confident, pretty, ready. But in this moment, the look of power has been defined in a multitude of ways and all of them are valid and unquestioned. Take notice. Embrace the victory. Like light passing through a prism, power has been revealed as a rainbow of possibilities.